sleep for longer stretches at night. So while I felt massive trepidation at this new stage in child-rearing, I was highly motivated by the potential for more sleep. In the grocery store, though, there were just so many choices. Oatmeal, cereals, fortified, not fortified, organic, enhanced… what the hell did it all mean?
Giuliana squirmed in my arms, wanting to see and touch everything. I tried to balance her with the cans and boxes I was looking at, scanning their ingredients.
“Need a hand?” A man came up beside me, smile wide and understanding. Behind him, I could see a cart with a cute little boy sitting in the bucket seat, looking to be seven or eight months older than Giuliana. The man himself was handsome, with close-cropped blond hair and blue eyes, and the kind of stubble that reminded me of my own—which was due to a lack of time to shave, rather than a conscious style choice.
I handed him the can of oat cereal in my hand. “Yes, please. I’m supposed to start cereals, and I have no clue what I’m doing.”
“Oh, God, yeah. I remember those days. Does your wife have an opinion?”
I took a closer look at him. Because there was a question behind the question there—not just if my wife had an opinion, but fishing to see if I had a wife. “No wife. Single dad here,” I said.
His eyebrow arched but his smile grew larger. “Me too. Fuck, it is so nice to meet another one of us in the wild. And you want this one,” he said, handing me a box of creamed wheat. “Super-fast to fix up, easily digestible, and easy to clean up the barf, should it come. My name is Richard.”
I grabbed the box and threw it in my cart, happy to have a decision made. “I’m Gordon, but everyone calls me Gordo.”
“Nice to meet you, Gordo.”
“Is it always going to be this hard to make all of these decisions?”
Richard laughed. It was musical, and I couldn’t help but join in. “Yes,” he said. “It doesn’t get easier. But when you make friends who are going through it, too, it makes all the difference. That’s Quinn in the cart. What’s your gorgeous girl’s name?”
“Giuliana. Thanks for the tip about the cereals.”
“No worries.” He reached into his back pocket. “Hey, I hope this isn’t too forward, but do you want to exchange numbers? I’d love to have a hang out and just talk single dad stuff with someone who gets it, you know?”
There was a moment where I hesitated. Kyle had always been...finicky about me making other male friends. He’d always wanted to know who I was with and where we were hanging out, and he almost always invited himself along.
I hadn’t minded for a long time because I’d assumed if Kyle and I shared a life, I was supposed to share all of my friends, too. But Christian later told me that he thought Kyle was being jealous and controlling, and after that, every inquiry from Kyle had rubbed me the wrong way.
But I didn’t have to worry about Kyle anymore. He was gone, along with his jealousy. As for Javi, well, I thought he’d understand. I’d told him enough about how hard it was to be a single dad. Being able to talk to someone who got it would be nice, and I couldn’t imagine he’d begrudge me that.
“Sure,” I said, and took hold of his phone to type in my number.
Javi was in the kitchen, washing the dishes from dinner. Giuliana had gone down easily tonight, but she’d been so fussy at dinner, we’d barely had a chance to talk.
“Hey,” I said, coming behind him to put my hands on his waist and kiss his neck above his t-shirt. “You don’t have to clean up.”
“You say that each time, and I keep t-telling you—I don’t mind. You cook and t-take care of Giuliana. Washing dishes is the least I can d-do.”
My hand drifted under the hem of his shirt. I trailed fingertips along the top of the waist of his jeans. “There are other ways you could thank me.”
“Mmm,” he agreed, but he stayed focused on finishing up the dishwashing. He was like that with jobs, focused until they were finished. I’d seen it a bit at the tattoo shop, too. It was a quality I admired, how dedicated he was to whatever was in front of him.
After grabbing a beer from the fridge, I hopped up to sit on